Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016 - (Page 4)
FIXED OPS JOURNAL
LONG-TERM THINKING
■ Hitting numbers, or giving customers reasons to return?
F
or years, I went to the local Jiffy
Lube for oil changes. When the
shop changed hands under a
lesser-known brand, I was greeted
by the new owner. He told me that he was
an expert in automotive glass. After a
courtesy inspection of my car, he came
back with bad news.
Those microscopic chips in my
windshield (I had never noticed them)
were a sure sign of future trouble. Let me
DAVE
fix them for a bargain price of $25, he
said, and you'll be spared a big bill down
dversical@crain.com
the road when those little defects turn
Editor
into dangerous, long cracks.
Fixed Ops Journal
I said no, thanks.
I bring this up in light of a lament I
heard from a veteran fixed ops director a few months ago. He said
there's a lot of (corporate) pressure out there to hit numbers. And
customers are helping to reach those targets by paying for
unnecessary repairs.
"It's just nice to sell people what they need from time to time," he
said.
Dave Wright would echo that. He's the fixed ops director at
Shaheen Chevrolet, a few miles south of Michigan's Capitol in
Lansing. He has spent nearly two decades at Shaheen, with more
than 10 years in Florida with some AutoNation stores sandwiched in
between.
He jokes about his PHD ("papa had dealership") pedigree. Now, at
VERSICAL
Shaheen Chevrolet's new, $2.2 million
quick-service center aims to bring customers
back for bigger repairs, repeat vehicle sales.
SAM TROTTER
PAGE 4
AUGUST 2016
59, his thesis on pleasing customers, shaped by a lifetime in and
around dealerships, is being put to its biggest test.
It's in the form of a new, $2.2 million, eight-bay fast lube and tire
center across the parking lot from Shaheen's traditional service
department, the one that used to struggle to do an oil change in less
than two hours.
Two million dollars is a lot of money for an operation that isn't
seen as a moneymaker.
But as you'll see on Page 36 of this issue, it's all about giving people
a reason to come in, and to come back. To borrow Wright's phrase,
you farm for customers by planting seeds for future visits. You don't
count the size of their bill as a hunting trophy.
"We want to tell you good news three times before we give you bad
news," he told me last month during a tour of his facility (see Pages
40-44). "We don't want them to feel like we're selling them
something every time."
Put another way: Fixed ops, like any other retail business, is a
three-legged stool. Those legs are customer satisfaction, employee
satisfaction and profitability.
If one of them comes up short, well, the whole enterprise can
topple.
That thinking is central to a philosophy that runs through Wright
and his team all the way to owner Ralph Shaheen.
If customers come to you for little stuff, they'll come to you for big
repairs. The more they rely on you to take care of their current car,
the more likely they'll be to buy their next car from you, too.
The bar at my old oil-change shop, I'm sure, is much lower. A visit
every 3,000 miles should have been enough to keep them happy.
But I've never gone back. And my windshield is still intact. ■
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016
Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016
Contents
Editor’s Letter
Service Counter
Legal Lane
Treading confidently
'Tis the season
Profit Builder
Valet service
Richard Truett
OEConnection
Changing oil:
Photo story
Trade-off
Toyota way
Feedback
Lone star
Airbag recall
Forging links
Top 50
5 Minutes With
Shop Talk
Fixed in Time
Fixed Ops Journal - August 2016
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